A seated statesman in dark coat and grey trousers, papers behind

A grey-haired man sits well back in a red leather armchair, turned slightly to his right, in a dark double-breasted coat, grey trousers and a patterned grey tie under a stiff white collar. His right hand rests on the chair arm; the left hangs over the far arm with the cuff showing. Loose papers lie on a table behind his shoulder. The ground is deep olive-black and the whole lower half of the canvas is the red-brown of the chair and floor. Signed at the upper left and dated at the upper right.

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was the leading portrait painter of his generation, born in Florence to American parents and trained in Paris under Carolus-Duran. The scandal of Madame X drove him to London in 1884, where he painted the aristocracy and the great merchant families for two decades before abandoning commissioned portraiture in 1907 for watercolour, landscape and mural work. He travelled constantly — Venice, the Alps, Spain, the Middle East, Florida — painting in oil and watercolour with a bravura touch that was widely imitated and never matched. His work is held by the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Tate and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Printed as a museum-grade giclée on Hahnemühle fine art paper using 12-ink archival pigment printing. Available handframed in FSC-certified wood with optional float glass, or unframed. Ships worldwide with free delivery to 30+ countries.